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Baked Hash of Potato and Beef

A baked hash of cooked beef, mashed potato, bread crumbs, butter, and water, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Hash of Potato and Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Chop the cooked beef into small pieces, but not too fine.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped beef, cold mashed potato, bread crumbs, butter, water, salt, and pepper. Mix well and transfer to a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes or until well browned.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cooked beef
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the hash.
Cold mashed potato
Binds the mixture and adds moisture and soft texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the surface brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Bake until well browned. Baking long enough lets the surface dry and brown through the Maillard reaction, which adds flavor and color. Pulling the dish early leaves the top pale and the interior less developed.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, butter, pepper):

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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